Jiwarli language

Ethnologue shows Jiwarli as an alternate name for the Australian Aboriginal language Mangarla. This is incorrect as Juwarliny is a dialect of Mangarla
Jiwarli
Spoken in Western Australia
Extinct April 1986 with the death of Jack Butler.
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3 djl
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Jiwarli (also spelt Djwiarli, Tjiwarli) is an Australian Aboriginal language formerly spoken in Western Australia. It is one of the Mantharta languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family.

The last native speaker of Jiwarli, Jack Butler, died in April 1986. Prof Peter K. Austin (Linguistics Department, SOAS) collected all the available material on Jiwarli during fieldwork with Jack Butler 1978-1985. He has published a volume of texts on the language and a bilingual dictionary (Jiwarli-English with English-Jiwarli finderlist); both are currently out of print.

Contents

Phonology

Vowels

Front Back
High i, iː u, uː
Low a, aː

Consonants

Peripheral Laminal Apical
Bilabial Velar Palatal Dental Alveolar Postalveolar
Stop p k c t̪ t ʈ
Nasal m ŋ ɲ n̪ n ɳ
Lateral ʎ l̪ l ɭ
Rhotic r ɻ
Semivowel w j

Phonotactics

Word-initially, only non-apical stops, nasals and glides are allowed; that is, words may only begin with one of {/p k j th m ng nh w y/}. Words may not begin with vowels.

All words end in vowels. Roots may end on a consonant, however -pa is added to all roots ending in l rl rr and -ma is added to all roots ending in a nasal that would violate the vowel-final word constraint.

External links